Lady Liberty had tenuous start

Thanks for your 25-year retrospective on Lady Liberty, that wonderful populist icon in the Susquehanna River.

Unfortunately, your story left out a significant detail --- one that many local residents seem to have forgotten. For weeks after the first installation, the Coast Guard threatened to have the statue removed as a "hazard to navigation" (as quoted in the newspaper at the time). This knee-jerk, bureaucratic response by federal authorities reminds us that our nation's founding premise of limited government is something we can never afford to take for granted.